7/15/2018 Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI
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Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI Conversational commerce is exploding in chat, delivering what you want, when you want it. Get to know the VCs and angels making it happen. Posted on July 15, 2018, at 2:59 a.m.
martineparis Community Contributor
Share Share https://www.buzzfeed.com/martineparis/follow-the-money-meet-the-investors-of-conversati-3ehs5?utm_term=.bx71wjgPEy#.aveWOLNrGK 1/43 7/15/2018 Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI Boost VC / Via boost.vc
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Hey Google, Alexa. Cortana, Siri and Messenger, 2018 is shaping up to be boom times.
As AI investment soars to historic highs, there's a renewed excitement among developers to create more productive, intelligent voice and text interaction between humans and chatbots. Q1 2018 pulled in $1.9 billion across 116 deals making it the biggest quarter ever, according to PwC's MoneyTree report. This influx of money is fueling dramatic advances in predictive analytics and deep learning, and accelerating the ability for algorithms to infer preferences from what we post across social media. With over 5 billion people on the messaging apps, the market potential for conversational commerce is massive.
Facebook, Amazon and Google, armed with our credit cards, calendars, location, and behavioral data, are already able to order us Ubers, event tickets, outfits, restaurants and hotel rooms just by asking a few questions in chat. It won't be long before bots are also able to match us with the perfect mates, housing, and jobs. "Ads are getting more relevant on these platforms. One day, upon being shown an ad on Instagram, you'll be able to say I want it and the bot will confirm store, brand, item name, size, color, address, and payment method - all through conversational UI. An ‘I want it’ from you and it ships. That will be a watershed moment for Facebook and a huge revenue stream. It will help small businesses do commerce better and will save users time from downloading apps or clicking around a website,” said Kevin Raheja, Head of Strategic Partnerships at HubSpot. For anyone who has shopped in a Shopify store powered by Octane AI, you may have experienced a helpful chatbot reaching out in Messenger to help you complete your order. "70% of people abandon their carts while shopping online," said Ben Parr, co-founder and CMO of Octane AI, "With our bots, stores are increasing abandoned cart revenue by 250% which on average translates to an increase of 7-25% in revenue per store," For those that get it right, there's a lot of money in conversational commerce.
"A Prime member spends $600 more annually that a non-Prime shopper, and Echo shoppers spend another $400 more!" said Molly co-founder Chris Messina in his recent Medium post. The faster and easier it is to order what we need, the more we spend. In a much celebrated move this past April, Facebook introduced the Messenger Store to help users find and engage with the more than 100,000 bots that's been developed for the platform. The store offers editorial features and categories to browse, and can be found in the Discovery tab at the bottom of messages. Although there are no charts yet to track top grossing apps, developers are able to report their own stats, and some are doing very well like SnapTravel, a hotel booking bot, which announced over $1 million of Messenger bookings at F8. Although Messenger still doesn't have a dedicated fund or accelerator to support its developer ecosystem, Amazon, Google and Microsoft do, and there are a growing number of corporate https://www.buzzfeed.com/martineparis/follow-the-money-meet-the-investors-of-conversati-3ehs5?utm_term=.bx71wjgPEy#.aveWOLNrGK 2/43 7/15/2018 Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI investors. venture capital firms, and angels profiled below who are placing bets on artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing. With their collective efforts, we can expect to soon see computer interaction that's friendlier, more efficient, and more human.
Meet The 40 Investors Rocking Chat
1. Adam Draper, Boost VC
Boost VC / Via boost.vc
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https://www.buzzfeed.com/martineparis/follow-the-money-meet-the-investors-of-conversati-3ehs5?utm_term=.bx71wjgPEy#.aveWOLNrGK 3/43 7/15/2018 Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI Adam Draper is the co-founder of Boost VC, a hybrid fund/accelerator that invests in 20 pre-seed startups twice a year and offers a 3 month accelerator that includes housing and office space in Silicon Valley. Portfolio consists of 200+ companies who have raised over $1 billion. Boost VC has made several AI investments including Octane AI, a Messenger bot concierge for Shopify stores. Octane AI co-founder Ben Parr described what it's like to work with Boost VC.
“Boost VC was our first investor. Adam and Brayton have had our back every step of the way, they’ve introduced us to multiple customers and investors of later rounds, and have been a very positive resource."
2. Adrian Fenty, M Ventures
https://www.buzzfeed.com/martineparis/follow-the-money-meet-the-investors-of-conversati-3ehs5?utm_term=.bx71wjgPEy#.aveWOLNrGK 4/43 7/15/2018 Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI
Wikipedia / Via en.wikipedia.org
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Adrian Fenty is the managing partner of M Ventures and the former Mayor of Washington D.C..The fund has invested in a number of conversational AI startups including Octane AI, Drift and the AI Foundation.
3. Alex Ferrara, Bessemer Venture Partners
CNBC / Via cnbc.com
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https://www.buzzfeed.com/martineparis/follow-the-money-meet-the-investors-of-conversati-3ehs5?utm_term=.bx71wjgPEy#.aveWOLNrGK 5/43 7/15/2018 Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI Alex Ferrara is Bessemer's lead partner on Dashbot, a conversational analytics platform, On his team is Jenny Gao who spoke recently at Dashbot's SuperBot 2018 conference on growing up with Alexa. “What does a generation of Alexa-raised kids look like? People didn’t take to voice interfaces quickly, but consider the evolution of human interaction with technology: Consumers are instantly disappointed when they can’t zoom with their index finger and thumb. Next up, a voice-first world can’t be far off."
4. Alex Mittal, FundersClub
Launch Incubator / Via launchincubator.co
Share Pin https://www.buzzfeed.com/martineparis/follow-the-money-meet-the-investors-of-conversati-3ehs5?utm_term=.bx71wjgPEy#.aveWOLNrGK 6/43 7/15/2018 Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI Alex Mittal is the co-founder of FundersClub, launched in 2012 as an online micro VC that makes pre- seed investments. FundersClub portfolio companies have gone on to raise over $2 billion of follow on capital from other leading venture capital firms and are valued at more than $7.6 billion. Portfolio includes: Slack, Coinbase, Instacart, Le Tote, Flexport, and conversational AI startup Unbabel which applies machine learning to translation to enable seamless, trusted cross-language communication.
5. Andrew Ng, AI Fund
Andrew Ng / Via aifund.ai
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Andrew Ng is the co-founder of Coursera, former Head of Baidu AI, and mastermind behind Google Brain's deep learning work. In January, Ng raised $175 million from NEA, Sequoia, Greylock and
https://www.buzzfeed.com/martineparis/follow-the-money-meet-the-investors-of-conversati-3ehs5?utm_term=.bx71wjgPEy#.aveWOLNrGK 7/43 7/15/2018 Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI Softback to launch AI Fund, an accelerator focused on developing transformative AI applications for manufacturing and enterprise.
6. Anne Patterson, Gradient Ventures
CNET / Via cnet.com
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Anne Patterson is founder and managing partner of Google AI fund, Gradient Ventures, which is seeking investments in startups focused on machine intelligence. Google Assistant Investments is operated separately. Patterson is on the board of Square and is a Stanford alum.
7. Ben Metcalfe, Ridge Ventures
https://www.buzzfeed.com/martineparis/follow-the-money-meet-the-investors-of-conversati-3ehs5?utm_term=.bx71wjgPEy#.aveWOLNrGK 8/43 7/15/2018 Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI
Ben Metcalfe / Via linkedin.com
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Ben Metcalfe is an investor at Ridge Ventures, co-founder of WP Engine, and former Uber, MySpace, and BBCNews. Metcalfe works with Alex Rosen who led investment in MindMeld, a platform for creating bots which was bought by Cisco last year.
Metcalfe shared with me his thoughts on the space, "I'm excited about the new interfaces and platforms conversational AI is enabling - Alexa and Google in our homes are great examples today but we're going to see rapid developments in automotive, industrial and healthcare applications where startups will be able to create massive value. I would also add that founders are going to need to tread carefully in the tightly controlled verticalized platforms like Alexa and Google Home, where the vendor controls every level of the stack. I hope that commoditization of the technology and greater competition will turn many of the walled gardens into open playgrounds where entrepreneurs and investors alike can feel safer exploring."
https://www.buzzfeed.com/martineparis/follow-the-money-meet-the-investors-of-conversati-3ehs5?utm_term=.bx71wjgPEy#.aveWOLNrGK 9/43 7/15/2018 Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI 8. Bill Reichert, Fenox Venture Capital
tyinternety.cz / Via tyinternety.cz
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Bill Reichert is a partner at Fenox Venture Capital who manages investments in the U.S. and heads the firm's Startup World Cup. He is a Harvard and Stanford grad and founding board member of the Churchill Club. Fenox invests in AI, robotics, big data, VR/AR, and fintech startups and is the lead investor of x.ai, a virtual scheduling assistant.
9. Brad Gillespie, IA Ventures
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Brad Gillepsie / Via techstars.com
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Brad Gillespie is a general partner of NYC-based IA Ventures, a TechStars mentor, and Microsoft alum. He invests in conversational AI and his portfolio includes x.ai and DataRobot, an automated machine learning platform for predictive modeling.
10. Brad Hunstable, Angel
https://www.buzzfeed.com/martineparis/follow-the-money-meet-the-investors-of-conversati-3ehs5?utm_term=.bx71wjgPEy#.aveWOLNrGK 11/43 7/15/2018 Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI
CNBC / Via cnbc.com
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Brad Hunstable is co-founder of Ustream and an angel investor. His portfolio includes Octane AI and Hickory, a YC15 startup that uses predictive analysis to understand when a sales rep will forget what they learned and provide review exercises to prevent that from happening.
11. Bruce Cleveland, Wildcat Ventures
https://www.buzzfeed.com/martineparis/follow-the-money-meet-the-investors-of-conversati-3ehs5?utm_term=.bx71wjgPEy#.aveWOLNrGK 12/43 7/15/2018 Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI
Wildcat / Via wildcat.vc
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Bruce Cleveland is a founding partner of Wildcat Ventures focused on AI, IoT and marketing automation. He is former Apple, Oracle and Siebel, and interested in growing entrepreneurial hubs outside of Silicon Valley including the Pacific Northwestl. Portfolio includes Amplero, a machine learning digital intelligence platform that enables marketers to achieve what is not humanly possible.
12. Christina Bechhold Russ, Samsung NEXT
https://www.buzzfeed.com/martineparis/follow-the-money-meet-the-investors-of-conversati-3ehs5?utm_term=.bx71wjgPEy#.aveWOLNrGK 13/43 7/15/2018 Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI
Christina Bechhold Russ / Via linkedin.com
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Christina Bechhold Russ is a principal at Samsung NEXT Ventues was the lead on Unbabel and is based in London. Samsung NEXT invests in transformative early-stage software and services startups based in Mountain View.
13. Colin Beirne, Two Sigma Ventures
https://www.buzzfeed.com/martineparis/follow-the-money-meet-the-investors-of-conversati-3ehs5?utm_term=.bx71wjgPEy#.aveWOLNrGK 14/43 7/15/2018 Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI
Colin Beirne / Via linkedin.com
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Colin Berne is the founder and partner of Two Sigma Ventures, a Brooklyn-based early-stage venture capital arm. Portfolio includes Anki, Amper Music, and Kasisto, a virtual assistant that manages personal finances.
14. Dharmesh Shaw, HubSpot Ventures Fund
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Dharmesh Shah / Via Twitter: @dharmesh
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Dharmesh Shaw is the founder of HubSpot, startup blogger and angel investor. HubSpot Ventures Fund has completed a half dozen investments with AI/ML/NLP functionality. Both Dharmesh and HubSpot Ventures Fund are investors in Drift.
15. Dr. Huican Zhu, Amino Capital
https://www.buzzfeed.com/martineparis/follow-the-money-meet-the-investors-of-conversati-3ehs5?utm_term=.bx71wjgPEy#.aveWOLNrGK 16/43 7/15/2018 Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI
Crunchbase / Via crunchbase.com
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Dr. Huican Zhu is a founding partner of Amino Capital, pioneer of Google image search, and Stanford professor. He is a recognized expert in computer vision image, facial and location detection. At Amino Capital, he spearheads a $100 million fund and is seeking seed to growth stage data-driven opportunities in autonomous driving, blockchain and conversational AI. Portfolio includes Ozlo which was bought by Facebook to develop Messenger's conversational interfaces.
16. Ilya Gelfenbeyn, Google Assistant Investments
https://www.buzzfeed.com/martineparis/follow-the-money-meet-the-investors-of-conversati-3ehs5?utm_term=.bx71wjgPEy#.aveWOLNrGK 17/43 7/15/2018 Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI Ilya Gelfenbeyn / Via angel.co
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Next time you say, "Hey Google," think of this Palo Alto-based AI pioneer who came to Google in 2016 when his company Dialogflow fka API.AI was acquired to build engaging conversational voice and text interfaces for the platform. Ilya Gelfenbeyn now heads up Google Assistant Investments and is seeking early stage investment opportunities that advance the digital assistant ecosystem. The fund was launched in May and provides money, resources, tools and promotional support for developers, particularly those focused on gaming, travel and hospitality.
17. Itxaso del Palacio, M12 Microsoft Ventures AI Fund
Microsoft / Via m12.vc
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M12 is the venture capital arm of Microsoft, currently investing in technology companies (Series A and beyond) based in San Francisco. The team has made a number of strategic investments in the conversational AI space including Unbabel, AI powered human translations, Voiceeitt, speech recognition, and Semantic which Microsoft just acquired to improve conversational interfaces (ahem Cortana). Microsoft will be establishing a Conversational AI Center in Berkeley where Semantic is based. Itxaso del Palacio is a partner based in London who led Unbabel for M12. https://www.buzzfeed.com/martineparis/follow-the-money-meet-the-investors-of-conversati-3ehs5?utm_term=.bx71wjgPEy#.aveWOLNrGK 18/43 7/15/2018 Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI 18. Izhar Armony, CRV
CRV / Via crv.com
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Izhar Armony is a partner at CRV who leads Drift, a conversational marketing platform. CRV fka Charles River Ventures has backed nearly 400 companies including ClassPass, DoorDash, Dropbox, Twitter, Zendesk, Hubspot, Yammer. Half of the companies CRV has backed have gone public. https://www.buzzfeed.com/martineparis/follow-the-money-meet-the-investors-of-conversati-3ehs5?utm_term=.bx71wjgPEy#.aveWOLNrGK 19/43 7/15/2018 Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI David Councel, CEO and co-founder of Drift, explains working with CRV, “There’s a reason why Izhar and the CRV team have been the first investors in the last two companies I have started with Performable and Drift. They have supported us since day one, and that commitment doesn’t wear off,"
19. John Borthwick, Betaworks
Pando / Via youtube.com
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John Borthwick is the founder and CEO of Betaworks, a NYC-based startup studio that runs accelerators, makes investments, offers a builders club with co-working space, and runs Botcamp and Voicecamp accelerators focused on building conversational interfaces. The camps take stock of participating startups and provides bot toolkits, mentorship on product, platform integration, data science, branding, user acquisition, and fundraising, access to an early adopter open beta network and AWS credits.Companies built by betaworks include Giphy, Dots, Tweetdeck and bitly,
20. John Lilly, Greylock Partners
https://www.buzzfeed.com/martineparis/follow-the-money-meet-the-investors-of-conversati-3ehs5?utm_term=.bx71wjgPEy#.aveWOLNrGK 20/43 7/15/2018 Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI
John Lilly / Via linkedin.com
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John Lilly is a Greylock partner, board member for Code for America, and was Greylock's lead on Tumblr, Instagram, Dropbox, AI Fund and Ozlo. Lilly is former Apple and a Stanford CS grad with a focus on Human Computer Interaction. He is currently a Lecturer at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and advisor to both the Stanford Technology Ventures Program and StartX, Stanford’s start up accelerator.
21. John Frankel, ffVC
https://www.buzzfeed.com/martineparis/follow-the-money-meet-the-investors-of-conversati-3ehs5?utm_term=.bx71wjgPEy#.aveWOLNrGK 21/43 7/15/2018 Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI
John Frankel / Via linkedin.com
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John Frankel is the founder of ffVC, a NYC venture capital firm investing in seed and early stage AI, cyber security, drones, and data analytics startups. Portfolio includes personal AI career guide Wade & Wendy, conversational analytics platform, Dashbot, and successful startup brands Contently, Indiegogo, Muse, Klout, and HowAboutWe.The firm also runs a 4 month incubator called AI NexusLab at NYU.
22. Julia Schottenstein, NEA
https://www.buzzfeed.com/martineparis/follow-the-money-meet-the-investors-of-conversati-3ehs5?utm_term=.bx71wjgPEy#.aveWOLNrGK 22/43 7/15/2018 Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI
Julia Schottenstein / Via Twitter: @j_schottenstein
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Julia Schottenstein is a Silicon Valley-based tech investor and Stanford computer science grad with a concentration in AI and finance. NEA is focused on the future of trucking, transportation and AI with investments in Mighty AI which delivers the human insights that artificial intelligence engines need to see, hear, talk and think like humans, Drive.AI which is building the software brain of the self-driving car, Pilot AI Labs computationally efficient deep-learning computer vision framework, and Andrew Ng's AI Fund.
23. Kate Mitchell, Scale Venture Partners
https://www.buzzfeed.com/martineparis/follow-the-money-meet-the-investors-of-conversati-3ehs5?utm_term=.bx71wjgPEy#.aveWOLNrGK 23/43 7/15/2018 Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI
CNBC / Via youtube.com
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Kate Mitchell is a co-founder of Scale Ventures which invests in transformative enterprise software companies like Box, DocuSign, HubSpot, Omniture, PubNub, and conversational AI startups, TalkIQ and Unbabel.
24. Krishna K. Gupta, Romulus Capital
https://www.buzzfeed.com/martineparis/follow-the-money-meet-the-investors-of-conversati-3ehs5?utm_term=.bx71wjgPEy#.aveWOLNrGK 24/43 7/15/2018 Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI
Romulus Capital / Via romuluscap.com
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Krishna K. Gupta is the founder and general partner of Romulus Capital who founded the firm while at MIT. Gupta's investments focus on emotional AI and include Cogito, Humanize and Ginger.io. Portfolio also includes ClassPass, ZeroCater.
25. Matt Garratt, Salesforce AI Innovation Fund
Web Summit / Via wecommer.com
Share Pin https://www.buzzfeed.com/martineparis/follow-the-money-meet-the-investors-of-conversati-3ehs5?utm_term=.bx71wjgPEy#.aveWOLNrGK 25/43 7/15/2018 Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI Matt Garratt is VP Managing Partner at Salesforce Ventures which late last year launched a $50 million fund for AI investment. Portfolio includes Unbabel, TalkIQ, Squiro and AllTurtles.
26. Nick Adams, AME Cloud Ventures
Jason Tusman / Via amecloudventures.com
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Nick Adams heads up AI efforts at Yahoo founder Jerry Yang's AME Cloud Ventures. His portfolio includes Cruise, CrowdAI, Zendrive, Zume Pizza, Bitpay, Tile and eero. Other AME funded companies include Ripple and Osaro. AME had a successful exit with Ozlo last summer when it was acquired by Facebook to build conversational AI experiences for Messenger.
27. Pat Grady, Sequoia Capital
https://www.buzzfeed.com/martineparis/follow-the-money-meet-the-investors-of-conversati-3ehs5?utm_term=.bx71wjgPEy#.aveWOLNrGK 26/43 7/15/2018 Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI
Sequoia Capital / Via sequoiacap.com
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Pat Grady is the partner on Drift at Sequoia Capital and this is his manifesto:
"We work with the founders & management of emerging market leaders at various stages of development. These individuals are incredibly intelligent, and extremely passionate about creating products their customers love and their employees are psyched to build. It's inspiring and very humbling. Many of our entrepreneurs are literally in the process of changing, at a very fundamental level, the way business is conducted and life is lived. It's a tremendous privilege for us to accompany them on that mission. Our role is to provide encouragement and support in the building of enduring businesses that will withstand the test of time." Sequoia's portfolio includes Drift, [24]7.ai, 23andMe, AdMob, Airbnb, App Annie, Apple, Atari, DoorDash, Good Eggs, Houzz, Humble Bundle, Instacart, PayPal, Reddit, WhatsApp, Yahoo, Zappos, Whisper, YouTube, Weebly, Unity, Tumblr, Strava, Square, PopSugar, PicsArt, LinkedIn, Instagram, HubSpot, Google, GitHub, EA, and Bird.
28. Paul Bernard, Alexa Fund
https://www.buzzfeed.com/martineparis/follow-the-money-meet-the-investors-of-conversati-3ehs5?utm_term=.bx71wjgPEy#.aveWOLNrGK 27/43 7/15/2018 Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI
Paul Bernard / Via techstars.com
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Paul Bernard heads up Amazon's $200 million Alexa Fund to develop voice technology innovation on the Alexa platform. He oversees the Alexa Accelerator which offers mentorship, resources, office space, and a Techstars showcase for startups working on connected home, wearables, hearables, enterprise, communications, connected car, health and wellness, and enabling technologies. To date the fund has made 38 investments and has had 7 exits.
29. Phil Libin, General Catalyst
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Phil Libin / Via Twitter: @plibin
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Phil Libin is a senior advisor to General Catalyst and co-founder of Evernote and AllTurtles, an AI startup studio. Libin was the lead on Octane AI. The GC portfolio includes Snap, Airbnb, ClassPass, HubSpot, Lemonade, Stripe, Giphy, Grammarly, Jet, Kayak, TuneIn, Venmo, Wag and Drift.
30. Sam Lessin, Slow Ventures
https://www.buzzfeed.com/martineparis/follow-the-money-meet-the-investors-of-conversati-3ehs5?utm_term=.bx71wjgPEy#.aveWOLNrGK 29/43 7/15/2018 Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI
The StartUp Kids / Via thestartupkids.com
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Sam Lessin is a serial entrepreneur, investor, podcaster, Facebook alum, kitesurfer, and married to the founder of The Information,. He is co-founder of Slow Ventures along with Dave Morin and Kevin Colleran. Portfolio includes some of the most interesting startups in tech: AngelList, NexDoor, Postmates, Everlane, Blue Bottle, Nest, Evernote, Postmates, Pinterest, Slack, Casper, Hipcamp, PillPack, ClassPass, Wag, Giphy, Common, Tile, Brandless, allbirds, Dwell, and eero. Conversational AI companies include virtual assistants Fin (which Lessin founded) and Assist.
31. Saman Farid, Baidi Ventures AI Fund
https://www.buzzfeed.com/martineparis/follow-the-money-meet-the-investors-of-conversati-3ehs5?utm_term=.bx71wjgPEy#.aveWOLNrGK 30/43 7/15/2018 Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI
Saman Farid / Via linkedin.com
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Saman Farid leads the Baidu Ventures AI Fund which is a $500 million growth stage fund . AI is a main focus of Beijing-based Baidu whose founder, Robin Li, has been quoted as saying, "Artificial Intelligence is the ember that will eventually illuminate the path to a new future." Faird's personal mission is to bring about artificially intelligent everything.
32. Sandeep Sardana, BluePointe Ventures
https://www.buzzfeed.com/martineparis/follow-the-money-meet-the-investors-of-conversati-3ehs5?utm_term=.bx71wjgPEy#.aveWOLNrGK 31/43 7/15/2018 Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI
Sandeep Sardana / Via angel.co
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Sandeep Sardana is co-founder of BluePoint Ventures which is a Micro VC fund that invests in frontier technologies accelerating the human experience with AI. BluePoint is currently participating in Aavamo, a deep learning virtual assistant for enterprise that has raised $23.5 million in rounds led by Intel Capital. ClassPass is also in its portfolio.
33. Scott Friend, Bain Capital Ventures
Bain Capital Ventures / Via baincapitalventures.com https://www.buzzfeed.com/martineparis/follow-the-money-meet-the-investors-of-conversati-3ehs5?utm_term=.bx71wjgPEy#.aveWOLNrGK 32/43 7/15/2018 Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI
Share Pin Scott Friend led the Berkeley-based Semantic Machines exit to Microsoft for BCV. Friend's areas of investment are in disruptive new consumer products, retail related technologies, and data analytics. His portfolio includes Jet.
34. Shawn Carolan - Menlo Ventures
Shawn Carolan / Via Twitter: @shawnvc
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Shawn is a partner at Menlo Ventures, and focuses on IT investments in the consumer sector. He was https://www.buzzfeed.com/martineparis/follow-the-money-meet-the-investors-of-conversati-3ehs5?utm_term=.bx71wjgPEy#.aveWOLNrGK 33/43 7/15/2018 Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI the lead investor in Siri, Roku, Uber, JUMP, IMVU, TeleNav, YuMe, and co-founded PlaySpan, a virtual currency marketplace and payments platform acquired by Visa in 2011.
35. Steve Hall, Vulcan Capital
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Vulcan Capital / Via capital.vulcan.com
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Steve Hall is the managing director of Vulcan Capital, the multi-billion dollar investment arm of Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul Allen. Portfolio includes Sun Basket, Redfin, ZoomInfo, and Sionyx. Hall serves on the board of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence.
36. Sumant Mandal, March Capital
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Sumant Mandal / Via Twitter: @sumantmandal
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Sumant Mandal is Managing Director at March Capital and invests in AI/ML, cloud, IoT and blockchain- driven companies. Portfolio includes Palo Alto-based The Hive, an early stage incubator for data- driven AI startups.
37. Theresia Gouw, Aspect Ventures
Fortune / Via fortune.com
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Theresia Gouw is co-founder of Aspect Ventures, former Accel, TED speaker, and Stanford and Brown alum. Aspect Ventures invests in the emerging mobile marketplace from Seed to Series A. Successes include HotelTonight, Birchbox, and Chime. In the mix is TalkIQ which applies AI, speech recognition, and NLP technology to help businesses understand how to take action on price inquiries,
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38. Trevor Kienzle, Correlation Ventures
Trevor Kienzle / Via Twitter: @TrevorKienzle
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Trevor Kienzle is a managing director of Correlation Ventures which fast tracks investment decisions in just two weeks. Portfolio includes top consumer brands Casper, Dolls KIll, GoodEggs, 10% Happier, and Sun Basket. Kienzle manages the Bay Area office and has an interest in intelligent bots.
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Qualcomm Ventures / Via qualcommventures.com
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Varun is based in San Francisco and leads Qualcomm Ventures' global Early-Stage Fund, focused on Seed and Series A opportunities. He was the lead on Cruise Automation (acquired by GM) and is an AI enthusiast.
40. Wendell Brooks, Intel Capital
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Intel Capital / Via Twitter: @wenbrooks
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Wendell Brooks is president of Intel Capital which invests in AI, IoT and cloud startups. It lead the most recent round for Avaamo, a deep learning startup that builds conversational interfaces based on neural networks to address problems in enterprises.
CB Insights overview of AI M&A activity
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CB Insights / Via cbinsights.com
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HubSpot's overview of the messaging apps
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HubSpot / Via research.hubspot.com
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